President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that he "had
to fire" former national security adviser Michael Flynn because
Flynn "lied" to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI.

The statement indicates that Trump was aware, when
Flynn was forced to resign, that he had lied to the FBI about
his contacts with Russian officials.

The tweet sheds light on Trump's appeal to former FBI
director James Comey to let go of the FBI's investigation into
Flynn, and his subsequent decision to terminate Comey when he
did not comply.

President Donald Trump may have just given special counsel Robert
Mueller's obstruction-of-justice investigation an inadvertent
boost.

On Saturday, Trump defended his former national security adviser,
Michael Flynn, following news that Flynn had pled guilty to one
count of making false statements to investigators during an
interview in January about his contacts with Russian ambassador
Sergei Kislyak during the transition period.

"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice
President and the FBI," the president tweeted on Saturday. "He
has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions
during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!"

Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser in
February, when news surfaced that Flynn had spoken to Kislyak
about US sanctions on Russia on December 29 — the same day that
the sanctions were imposed by President Barack Obama.

'I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence'

Trump told reporters at the time that he had been forced to fire
Flynn because he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about those
conversations. But the White House gave no indication at the time
that it knew Flynn had lied to the FBI in a January interview
about those conversations — a federal crime that Flynn pleaded
guilty to on Friday.

"I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence," Trump
said during a press conference on February 16.

He continued: "Very simple. Mike was doing his job.
He was calling countries and his counterparts. So, it certainly
would have been OK with me if he did it. I would have directed
him to do it if I thought he wasn’t doing it. I didn’t direct
him, but I would have directed him because that’s his job."

Trump's tweet on Saturday appears to indicate that Trump was
aware Flynn had lied to the FBI when he departed the
administration in February.

It also seems out of line with what a person close to White House
counsel Don McGahn told the New York Times on Friday, which is
that when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned him
about Flynn in January, she did not mention that Flynn had
committed a federal crime.

If Trump knew that Flynn was in the FBI's crosshairs when he
asked former FBI Director James Comey, whom he later fired, to
consider "letting Flynn go" the day after Flynn resigned, that
could dramatically bolster the obstruction
case federal prosecutors are building against him.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to
letting Flynn go," Trump told Comey on February 14, according to
Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in
June. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

Comey gave no indication that he would consider Trump's
request. Three months later, Trump abruptly fired Comey, wo was
leading the FBI's Russia investigation at the time.

James
Comey.Jonathan Ernst/Getty
Images

Trump is either 'utterly clueless about his own jeopardy or
he truly believes he is beyond accountability'

"I think the obstruction case was already substantial —
both circumstantially and through Trump’s own words," said DOJ
veteran and former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bill
Yeomans.

"This tweet certainly contributes to the case. He knew
Flynn lied to the FBI when he pressed Comey to drop the case and
then fired Comey," Yeomans said. "Mostly disturbingly, however,
the tweet shows either that the president is utterly clueless
about his own jeopardy or he truly believes he is beyond
accountability because neither his base nor Republicans in
Congress will hold him responsible."

Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa largely
agreed.

"I think if the President knew Flynn had done anything
illegal at the time he asked Comey to drop investigation, then
yes, it strengthens the [obstruction] case," she said on
Saturday.

"I think it also has to be looked at in the context of both
him and others on the campaign simultaneously and blanketly
denying any contacts with Russia, when the statement of facts
Flynn pled to clearly shows the opposite," Rangappa added.

"So asking Comey to drop investigation knowing he had lied
to FBI, combined with the pattern of lying about the existence
and nature of across his campaign evidences a (corrupt) intent to
prevent what would be uncovered by the investigation."

Andy Wright, a former associate counsel to President Barack
Obama and Vice President Al Gore, said Trump's tweet
"could be construed as an admission that he knew
Flynn had lied to the FBI on January 24."

"Later that same week, DOJ tells the WH that Flynn is
compromised and President Trump tells Jim Comey he 'needs
loyalty.' Then, on Valentine’s Day, the President asks Comey if
the FBI could 'let Flynn go,'" Wright said. "Having not received
the assurances he sought, he fired Comey under the false pretext
of Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation. As an
obstruction of justice timeline, it looks very bad."

George Frey/Getty Images

The White House initially said Comey was fired because of
his handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

Later, however, Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that "this
Russia thing" had been a factor in his consideration. He also
told Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting one day
after firing Comey that dismissing the FBI director had taken
"great pressure" off of him.

"Oh my god, he just admitted to obstruction of justice,"
tweeted former DOJ spokesman Matt Miller. "If Trump knew Flynn
lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go, then there is
your case."

"So he knew Flynn had lied, and now he’s admitted it. And
of course it’s possible he and Flynn discused it at the time,"
Miller later told Business Insider. "Just unreal."

Did Trump 'direct Flynn to lie to the FBI?'

Wright noted that Flynn's guilty plea also raised a "second
obstruction question" related to Trump's tweet: "Did President
Trump direct Flynn to lie to the FBI? That would be squarely
within the abuses of power the Framers contemplated as they
drafted the impeachment clauses."

According to documents filed by Mueller's office on Friday,
Flynn called a senior member of Trump's transition team "who
was with other senior members of the Presidential Transition Team
at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what,
if anything, to communicate" to Kislyak "about the US Sanctions,"
the document says.

Trump was at Mar-a-Lago on December 29. A press-pool report
from that day indicates that transition officials at Mar-a-Lago
included Stephen Miller, K.T. McFarland, Kellyanne Conway, Steve
Bannon, and Reince Priebus.

Fox and CBS reported on Friday that it was McFarland
who spoke with Flynn about Kislyak on December 29.

But Colin Kahl, a former national security adviser to Vice
President Joe Biden, noted that "incoming Deputy
National Security Advisors don't order their incoming boss what
to do ... unless they were instructed to do so by someone higher
in the chain of command."

Former NSC spokesman Ned Price agreed.

"KT McFarland’s recent foreign policy bona fides consisted
of being a Fox News talking head," he tweeted. "She wasn’t
calling the shots, and certainly not giving her own orders to her
putative boss."